Phone As Key issues

DBC

Well-Known Member
First Name
Don
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Threads
8
Messages
1,224
Reaction score
1,428
Location
San Diego
Vehicles
Volt ELR
Country flag
Food news: PAAK is now working fine, in fact better than before. All the commands like window up/down, lift gate are working -- I don't think they were before.
I got excited for a moment just thinking about Food News. So disappointed!!!

FWIW similar experience to yours but I didn't have to reinstall. Haven't tried the second phone yet. Had a little drama with the Wifi and Homelink and decided to let things sort for a bit before adding a complication.

The one thing I also discovered, which you probably know about, is that if are in a screen other than a main one in FordPass then PAAK doesn't recognize the phone. I went to the error code screen and forgot about it. When I went to the car it didn't recognize the phone. Went to FP and called up the Home screen. Worked.
Sponsored

 

DBC

Well-Known Member
First Name
Don
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Threads
8
Messages
1,224
Reaction score
1,428
Location
San Diego
Vehicles
Volt ELR
Country flag
Drama. I think I’d be like you, I’d work through the issues, troubleshooting until it worked. My wife however, would be pissed, frustrated, and would throw her hands up. She’d never use the PAAK or even try. She’d hold a grudge against the car forever.
Exactly same with my wife. She would probably say NO to a Ford ever ... that’s why hoping to get a second fob soon if we can figure it’s back order situation.
Wouldn't have to be wives either. Lots of people don't want to be saddled with drama.

Clearly a big error on Ford's part. They got out way too far over their skis. What's sad is there is such a simple fix -- just give everyone two fobs, which is likely what they'll need to do anyway. In six months or so things will be sorted and one fob should be fine. Cleary the engineers weren't experienced enough to understand how difficult putting something like this into widespread practice was going to be. I don't want to even think about how expensive having customer support deal with this is going to be!
 

JellyBelly

Well-Known Member
First Name
Kris
Joined
Jun 27, 2020
Threads
14
Messages
2,481
Reaction score
1,937
Location
San Diego
Vehicles
MME RR FE
Country flag
Wouldn't have to be wives either. Lots of people don't want to be saddled with drama.

Clearly a big error on Ford's part. They got out way too far over their skis. What's sad is there is such a simple fix -- just give everyone two fobs, which is likely what they'll need to do anyway. In six months or so things will be sorted and one fob should be fine. Cleary the engineers weren't experienced enough to understand how difficult putting something like this into widespread practice was going to be. I don't want to even think about how expensive having customer support deal with this is going to be!
Yes totally with you . It’s not about gender but tolerance and patience. At least two fobs would have made a few situations less stressful and can atleast drive the car, lock it and not have to worry about will the phone work.
 

agoldman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Threads
49
Messages
2,889
Reaction score
2,397
Location
Charleston, SC
Vehicles
GT Cyber Orange
Country flag
Does the FordPass app have to be open before we can unlock with PAAK? I don't want that app always running if I can help it.
 

JellyBelly

Well-Known Member
First Name
Kris
Joined
Jun 27, 2020
Threads
14
Messages
2,481
Reaction score
1,937
Location
San Diego
Vehicles
MME RR FE
Country flag
Does the FordPass app have to be open before we can unlock with PAAK? I don't want that app always running if I can help it.
Most reports imply it works better if open but agree with you that it’s a pain to make sure it’s open
 


methorian

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2019
Threads
15
Messages
1,531
Reaction score
2,390
Location
Roanoke, VA
Vehicles
Mach-E First Edition, Mini Cooper SE
Occupation
IT Admin
Country flag
Does the FordPass app have to be open before we can unlock with PAAK? I don't want that app always running if I can help it.
Yes, it should be kept open. If you force close on an iPhone you even get a notification indicating that PaaK works best when the app is kept open.
 

agoldman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Threads
49
Messages
2,889
Reaction score
2,397
Location
Charleston, SC
Vehicles
GT Cyber Orange
Country flag
Yes, it should be kept open. If you force close on an iPhone you even get a notification indicating that PaaK works best when the app is kept open.
Well then I'm out of that. Bulky FOB for me I guess. Just what you don't want on your phone. Something eating up memory and resources and battery 24/7. Or something you have to manually manage. More trouble than it's worth. Defeats the purpose.
 

DBC

Well-Known Member
First Name
Don
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Threads
8
Messages
1,224
Reaction score
1,428
Location
San Diego
Vehicles
Volt ELR
Country flag
Day 3
I followed the in-car manual's instructions to delete the PAAKs that were already saved and went through the install again (also deleting and reinstalling the app on my phone for a clean start). I reinstalled my wife's phone, too.

Good news: PAAK is now working fine, in fact better than before. All the commands like window up/down, lift gate are working -- I don't think they were before.

Now let's see how long it all lasts.

One remaining issue: When I went to get into the car this morning (day 4), Marlin didn't automatically recognize me and set the seat, etc. to my preferences. I switched the driver to my profile on the infotainment screen and all was good.
And what percentage of the car buying public is going to want to deal with this? It's so damning. Deleting and reinstalling on the phone. Then deleting on the MME. Then reauthorizing. We (and Ford) should just admit PAAK was a mistake. Not that it was rolled out, that's great, but rolling it out with one fob which forces everyone to use it as a primary option. Would have been much better to roll it out as an option in addition to the two fobs. Then some people would have used it, encountered issues, reported them, and Ford could have resolved them. Then the one fob plus PAAK would be fine. As it is people are going to encounter issues and be very annoyed and angry aka pis**ed off about it since Ford hasn't provided the simple and standard solution.
 

TheStig

Well-Known Member
First Name
Rob
Joined
Jan 22, 2021
Threads
4
Messages
92
Reaction score
221
Location
Michigan
Vehicles
2021 GB Mach-E FE, 2023 Porsche GT4
Country flag
Well then I'm out of that. Bulky FOB for me I guess. Just what you don't want on your phone. Something eating up memory and resources and battery 24/7. Or something you have to manually manage. More trouble than it's worth. Defeats the purpose.
I'm an iOS software engineer. I can assure you that leaving the app "running" is the best thing to do for all your apps. Apple is really good about resource usage. We are only granted access to small spurts of resource usage and we aren't even guaranteed when those will happen. If we request GPS location while the app is backgrounded, we are only granted access to the GPS data that uses the least amount of battery. We aren't allowed to spin up the GPS antenna, we only get to use the low-battery-use wifi/cell triangulation.

And for bluetooth low energy (BLE), it's always running anyways! It's the reason that handoff works from your phone to your iPad/Mac, or the reason why the phone knows when you open your AirPods case.

Fun fact: If you "force kill" your apps, you can potentially use MORE ENERGY than if you just let iOS manage your resources. This is because it takes more energy to open an app from closed than it does to un-background it. A backgrounded app will never steal enough resources to make your phone run worse. If an app is the reason another app is starving for resources, iOS will kill the trouble app on its own.

Android on the other hand is the Wild West. Don't buy an Android.
 

srogers

Well-Known Member
First Name
Steve
Joined
Dec 27, 2019
Threads
10
Messages
151
Reaction score
198
Location
San Francisco Bay Area
Vehicles
Mustang, Mach E, Premium, 2021
Country flag
Well then I'm out of that. Bulky FOB for me I guess. Just what you don't want on your phone. Something eating up memory and resources and battery 24/7. Or something you have to manually manage. More trouble than it's worth. Defeats the purpose.
Actually, Apple recommends that you only force quit iOS applications when they are frozen. Apps that are in the background are suspended. Relaunching them uses more of your battery. Here is an article that explains why you shouldn't routinely force quit applications.

https://tidbits.com/2020/05/21/why-...-quitting-ios-apps-or-restarting-ios-devices/
 

agoldman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Threads
49
Messages
2,889
Reaction score
2,397
Location
Charleston, SC
Vehicles
GT Cyber Orange
Country flag
I'm an iOS software engineer. I can assure you that leaving the app "running" is the best thing to do for all your apps. Apple is really good about resource usage. We are only granted access to small spurts of resource usage and we aren't even guaranteed when those will happen. If we request GPS location while the app is backgrounded, we are only granted access to the GPS data that uses the least amount of battery. We aren't allowed to spin up the GPS antenna, we only get to use the low-battery-use wifi/cell triangulation.

And for bluetooth low energy (BLE), it's always running anyways! It's the reason that handoff works from your phone to your iPad/Mac, or the reason why the phone knows when you open your AirPods case.

Fun fact: If you "force kill" your apps, you can potentially use MORE ENERGY than if you just let iOS manage your resources. This is because it takes more energy to open an app from closed than it does to un-background it. A backgrounded app will never steal enough resources to make your phone run worse. If an app is the reason another app is starving for resources, iOS will kill the trouble app on its own.

Android on the other hand is the Wild West. Don't buy an Android.
yeah, I keep hear this is the case, and I so want to believe it, but I really have a hard time letting go of old school resource implications. I still swipe everything closed routinely on my phone and mac.
 

Luke

Well-Known Member
First Name
Luciano
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Threads
7
Messages
341
Reaction score
441
Location
MA, USA
Vehicles
Mustang Mach e, Taurus
Occupation
Computer Engineer
Country flag
I set up PAAK and the backup codes for Marlin when I went to pick him up. The setup was a breeze and worked fine right away. I then had no problem setting up my wife's phone. Mine's an iPhone 12 Pro, hers an iPhone 7.

On my second day I went off about my business, using PAAK and leaving the key fob at home. It worked flawlessly except the pickup isn't really good. I found it worked great if I was holding the phone or had it in a front pocket, back pockets don't work so well. This is true for both opening the door and for starting the car. Of course for starting the car, PAAK works great with the phone in the Qi charger.

Day 2.5
Early afternoon I returned home, had a couple of video calls and went to leave again. The FordPass app was frozen and wouldn't run at all. I closed it, reopened it, turned off the phone, and restarted the phone. Nothing. The app wouldn't work at all. All I got was a frozen white screen with a big F (in nice cursive of course).

As a final step, I deleted the app from my iPhone and reinstalled it.
Good news: the app worked
Bad news: PAAK didn't work any more
I tried to set up PAAK again from the FordPass app. It went through all the steps but the car still had the old instance of my phone and the old backup codes. So I picked a new name for my phone and established new backup codes. No dice. All the steps seemed fine but PAAK wouldn't work.

Day 3
I followed the in-car manual's instructions to delete the PAAKs that were already saved and went through the install again (also deleting and reinstalling the app on my phone for a clean start). I reinstalled my wife's phone, too.

Good news: PAAK is now working fine, in fact better than before. All the commands like window up/down, lift gate are working -- I don't think they were before.

Now let's see how long it all lasts.

One remaining issue: When I went to get into the car this morning (day 4), Marlin didn't automatically recognize me and set the seat, etc. to my preferences. I switched the driver to my profile on the infotainment screen and all was good.
Did you or anyone here tested the Apple Watch to see if that would mimic the PAAK too?
 

Badger_Prof

Well-Known Member
First Name
Randy
Joined
Jun 22, 2020
Threads
4
Messages
759
Reaction score
1,539
Location
Wisconsin
Vehicles
Prior--Leaf,Bolt EV. Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD ER
Country flag
Did you or anyone here tested the Apple Watch to see if that would mimic the PAAK too?
The Apple Watch app works fine for me although all it can do is turn the car on/off and lock/unlock the car. It also receives messages such as "fully charged." My watch is a current version--series 6.
Sponsored

 
 




Top